It might seem like magic, but creating a welcoming home is as easy as following a formula.

Have you ever walked into someone’s home and been immediately envious that it wasn’t yours? And we aren’t talking about some mansion either, but about those homes that make you want to kick off your shoes, curl up with your legs underneath you on the sofa, and stay forever.

7 Steps to Creating a Welcoming Home

1.Art That Draws You In

Choose colorful, warm, and dynamic art to cover the walls like bold prints or landscape photos. Get playful with your placement as well. Instead of placing art at standing eye level, consider hanging artwork at eye level for when you are sitting down! Just this simple adjustment can change the whole feel of a room.

2. Be True to Yourself

Don’t be too rigid with your decorating style. Allow yourself to step outside the predominant style of your room to add those touches that you love. A room that is too “perfect” can come across can cold and unwelcoming. And one should always decorate with items from their travels, gifts from loved ones, and those things that speak to you.

3. Find the Focal Point

Whether it’s a fireplace, a window, or the layout of the room arrange your furniture around that focal point or highlight it, whatever the case may be. By the same token, color can be used to manage a room. For example, an accent wall can help draw visitors into a long rectangular room.

4. The Right Lighting

Believe it or not, lighting can completely change a room. Don’t think of lamps and lighting fixtures as an afterthought, but create your room around the lighting and your intended use of the room. A dramatic overhead light might be ideal for a room you plan on entertaining in, while recessed lighting would work best for a family room. Another point to consider, according to Ashley Rose Marino of Ashley Rose Marino Designs, “If the space is especially dark, even with additional lighting, you may want to consider lightening your decor with the addition of whites and greys instead of darker beiges to add brightness through your furniture.”

5. Texture

Texture is key to shaping a welcoming home. Rugs, pillows, throws, curtains and other textiles can go a long way to making a space more interesting and inviting. Texture can be a way to introduce visual interest and keep a room from looking flat. You also want to think about texture when considering furniture–some fabrics and finishes are jut way more comfortable and call out for you to sink into them.

6. Create Flow

Use furniture and open space to draw in visitors and to help facilitate conversation and comfort. Too much furniture squashed together does not make for a welcoming room. Mark Cutler from Mark Cutler DESIGN, INC puts it best, “Is it clear how you are supposed to enter the room, try not to have furniture cluttered everywhere, create simple and defined areas for each activity.”

7. Minimalism Can Be Good

Not only can minimalism be good for the planet, but it can also help save you money and create a more welcoming space. As Elaine Thompson, lifestyle specialist at Just Energy, puts it, “Focusing on a few quality pieces to put in a room is far better than cluttering it with a bunch of knick-knacks and things that don’t add value to your space. Think about how you want someone to feel in the room, and then only contribute pieces that support that idea. A great thing about this strategy is that it will make your living space look classy AF and save you money.”

Related on EcoSalon

9 Easy (and Cheap) DIY Home Decor Projects for Under $25
7 Stunning Entryway Ideas for a Welcoming Home
11 Boho Chic Ideas for A Home Off the Beaten Path

The post The 7 Step No-Fail Formula for a Creating a Welcoming Home appeared first on EcoSalon.

Sit back and take a load off with these stunning handmade lounge chairs that combine both comfort and design. 

While lounge chairs may make you think of super bad Barcaloungers from the seventies and eighties, anyone who watched “Mad Men” knows lounge chairs are super cool. More importantly, though, they are super comfortable. By definition, lounge chairs are for lounging. They are meant to be comfortable and meant for reclining or lounging back, as opposed to an upright style chair like a wing chair. But the ultimate in lounge chairs is to blend both form and function, or design and comfort.  The Eames lounge chair of the 1950s is the perfect example. It combined style, elegance, and timelessness, but with an easy comfort that makes it still desirable after all these years.

While the Eames chair may be the perfect specimen, there are plenty of other chairs that can live up to the demands of both form and function. In fact, a quick trip to Etsy shows that there are some worthy examples of handmade craftsmanship out there, just ready to add to your space.

Don’t settle for mainstream furniture pieces! Instead, get inspired with these handmade lounge chairs to add easy comfort and style to your living space.

Handmade Lounge Chairs

1. Tufted Mid-Century Lounge

We love the easy elegance of this handmade piece from Circa60. It is inspired by the designs of modern furniture designer Adrian Pearsall and features high resilient cushions and teak wood. It also has a corresponding ottoman, which is important for any serious lounger.

2. Hand Woven Lounger

This stunning hand woven arm chair lounger from Masaya Trading Company is made with a sustainable-sourced Nanciton wood (tropical hardwood) frame. The seat and back feature a striking linear pattern in red, blue and natural. All of the wood used is either reclaimed from hurricane damaged areas or sustainably harvested. It’s a stylish and casual statement piece that is great for any room, and looks to be quite comfortable.

3. Leentu Lounge Chai

The handcrafted Leentu lounge from Lunar Lounge Design is made from formaldehyde-free Canadian Maple ply that comes from renewable, sustainable sources. It has a uniquely shaped wood frame and “slung style” woven jute web-seating that looks super comfy, but it’s also unique enough to add design to your space. It just might be the perfect furniture solution for your mid-century, ecologically-conscious home.

4. Relief Felt Lounge Chair

This chair from Mickus Projects blends both the mid-century with contemporary design. It features that timeless mid-century design, but its sculpted digital-fabrication is completely of this time. It’s made from renewable wool felt over an aluminum frame. It’s soft, sturdy, and while it may be totally out of your price range, it’s worth drooling over. It also happens to be in the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.

5. Grant Featherston Lounge

Inspired by Grant Featherston, the great furniture designer of the 1960s, this chair from Macer Home Decor features mid-century design with boho chic styling. It’s sure to be a statement piece if you add it to your living space. We love it.

Related on EcoSalon

How to Arrange Furniture Like a Pro
The Pouf Ottoman is the Perfect Piece of Furniture
Vintage Furniture Ideas for Every Room in the House

Tan Leather Lounge Chair via Shutterstock

The post 5 Amazing Handmade Lounge Chairs: Perfect the Art of Lounging appeared first on EcoSalon.

A sleep well-traveled.

These bright and worldly pillow cases are handmade by artisans in Southwest India using Batik, the traditional Indian art of creating patterns on fabric. A set of three pillows spans the globe from the Americas to Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. At $95, that’s a much better bargain than an around the world ticket, in coach.

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.com

The post Lustables: Continent Pillows appeared first on EcoSalon.

There are good entertainers and great ones. Be great with an imaginative coffee table diversion.

Put these hand-printed replenishable hardwood blocks on your coffee table and you will not only be the most stylish host/cool-aunt around, you will be doing a tremendous service to your aesthetic sensibility. The kit, which includes 25 ultra-colorful blocks, comes with several ideas to get your creative juices flowing—be it a graphic pattern, funny monkey, or emergency coaster.

A great living room addition for a home with kids, or adults with a creative spirit. From Miller Goodman for about $85.

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.

The post Lustables: ShapeMaker Blocks appeared first on EcoSalon.

The pallid and soft tones of this living room are an alluring invitation. The furnishings are pragmatic and the details are whimsical. The composition of artwork and frames is the perfect anchor for the three dimensional piece of Mother Nature (yes, it’s a real branch and yes, it’s gorgeous).

This is the warm and relaxed living room of Eldrid. She has explored her imagination and found this wildly creative use for bringing nature inside – her intention was to create the ambiance of sitting magically under a tree. It is magical.

Here are five (almost) effortless ways to realize a similar look inside your walls.

1. Scour your nearest form of Mother Nature for a fallen branch. Look for one that is structurally interesting with lines that make you stare, ponder, and drool. Mount and/or hang your new confection of sticks on the wall.

2. Score this Reclaimed Tin Picture Frame (in white). The secret – don’t fill it. Let the pallid grey of your walls shine through.

3. Use two of these Bakery Bins as a base for an inspired coffee table. Top these gorgeous wooden crates with glass, a simple window pain, or a reclaimed slab of wood.

4. Rest a few of these Red Tick Decorative Pillows (in greige) on your couch for hint of texture that you can sink into.

5. Rest a Vintage Antler on your coffee table next to a gathering of Soy Candles – the organic lines of the horn will gleam under flickering flames.

The patina of vintage and repurposed pieces adds a lot of charisma to this living room – to really perfect the look, peruse some antique stores and flea markets to make it your own.

If you love the look of grey, but you crave a little color – click here to adore a gorgeous room grounded in grey and brimming with mustard and camel (complete with three ways to get the look).

The post 5 Effortless Ways to Get This Look appeared first on EcoSalon.